


desperation

by WritingOnTheWalls



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Depression, I refuse to let them be happy?, M/M, Mental Illness, People being unaccommodating re: potential illness of their fiance., Pre-Canon Jammy, Psychosis, Regret, Relationship breakdown, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide attempt (not of major character), desperate people saying awful things, sad boys, why do i do this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 08:15:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19764169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingOnTheWalls/pseuds/WritingOnTheWalls
Summary: constantly googling big foot conspiracies is one thing, but discussing them with the kettle is an entirely different matter, and sammy's having none of it.





	desperation

**Author's Note:**

> Me on discord: what if Sammy was convinced Jack was having a psychotic breakdown before he disappeared, wow that would be so angsty haha!!  
> also me: but what if I spent the next two hours word-vomiting about that haha I don’t have time for that shit.  
> me, two hours later: *submits fic*  
> Why am I like this.

It had been hard to ignore the signs once they’d started, especially for somebody like Sammy Stevens. He knew it was wrong, but he couldn’t help but view the world through that particular narrative lens – it had shaped and defined and destroyed his childhood, after all.

So when Jack starts acting a little strange, the panic sets in a little too quickly.

It’s nothing major at first. Probably nothing to be worried about, and certainly no reason for him to be afraid.  
Jack spends a little too often staring thoughtfully into the empty distance, pauses a little too long before responding to a direct question, reacts a little too slowly to any kind of physical touch.  
And Sammy’s heart breaks a little too hard for something that might not even be happening.

Jack starts focusing on things that seem entirely inconsequential, completely ignoring his actual responsibilities to do so.  
He stays up late eight nights in a row, googling everything he can about _The Loch Ness Monster_ of all things, and he doesn’t prepare any of their shows that week.

Six weeks later, he forgets to shower four days in a row, until Sammy kindly (and perhaps too patiently) mentions that hastily applied deodorant isn’t any real substitute for soap and water and shampoo.

Sometimes he gets so wrapped up in the books he’s devouring, that he forgets to eat. More than once, Sammy had spent hours preparing Jack’s favourite meal, placed it on his desk in the hopes that Jack might actually eat it if he didn’t have to get to the table, and returned hours later to find Jack asleep (and drooling) on a paperback pillow, food still sitting slightly off to the side exactly where he’d left it.

It’s months before the tangents start. Sammy will make a comment about something, anything, and Jack will reply with gusto, about something not even a little bit on-topic, completely convinced that he’s answering Sammy’s question. He’s not sure how ‘Do you want to watch a movie’ turns into a thirty minute rant about ‘Shadows-that-aren’t-like-people-shadows-but-are-actually-evil-shit-and-oh-man-you-gotta-hear-this!’ but it does.  
  
Neither of them are happy. Not for the most part. They’re comfortable in their relationship, and so full of affection and gratitude, but sometimes that’s not enough to achieve the kind of bliss that Sammy so desperately craves.

  
They have a big house with a beautiful garden. It’s warm in the winters, and bearable in the summer. Every inch of wall is lined with paintings and photographs, shelves with mementos and ornaments. They are never wanting for food or any other comfort. They have financial security, and more than enough spare cash to throw around.  
The walls in their house are a brilliant yellow that Jack had picked out – like sunshine and freedom and _happy._ The bed they share with the red comforter is Sammy’s favourite place in the world, because it’s a place he can be completely and utterly himself. Jack’s usually there too, which helps.

The things they’ve lost though, to have this life, to have each other. It weighs heavily on both of their minds.  
The list starts with their parents. Lily appears in sixteen different places. There’s a kind of freedom in being together, and in being away from the messy life they’d wanted so desperately to leave, but there’s no freedom in pretending they’re something they’re obviously not. In being _Shotgun Sammy_ and his _Totally-Not-Fiance Roommate and Producer Jack._

Sammy misses not having to pretend to flirt with every woman he came across, and he misses not having to be crass to them over the radio because it makes people he doesn’t even like laugh.  
Jack misses the mundanity of their previous life, because talking about sports and love and the weather sure beats the hell out of pretending he’s a homophobe for something as ridiculous as ratings.

They both miss looking in the mirror and liking the people they saw staring back at them, even if their jaw was a little tense, their heart a little heavy.

Sammy fears that Jack’s losing a little more than that though. Sammy’s lost so much to the thing already, he doesn’t need to – or want to – lose Jack as well.

There’s no set standard for psychosis. It manifests differently in each person, and any two people’s list of presenting symptoms could be completely different.  
For Sammy’s mother, it had been a lifetime of talking at inanimate objects as though they completely understood, coupled with a few concerning incidents involving attempts to visit church in nothing but her high heels and underwear.  
There were other things, of course. But Sammy had hardly noticed. He was just a kid, after all.

  
Sammy had grown up hearing the word whispered behind closed doors, but hadn’t understood the complexities or the perceived strangeness until a middle school science lesson.  
(The kid who’d dared say something about his mother had ended up with a black eye. Sammy had earned himself a week’s suspension, some mandatory therapy and a few handy pamphlets with words like ‘mental illness’ and ‘anger’ and ‘guilt.’

Their life was mostly normal. If his mother acted a little different now and then, well. What was ‘normal’ anyway?

It hadn’t been a real issue until the morning of his 16th birthday wherein, upon awakening, he’d found his mother attempting to drown herself in the bathtub.  
  
It’d been terrifying, but not entirely unexpected.

(She’d survived, but life had driven her and Sammy apart years ago, so he honestly didn’t know if she were well, or even alive.)

Jack was just. Not something Sammy attributed to that way of being. He was fresh air after drowning, the smell of freshly mown grass on a crisp springs day, so full of passion and love and joy.   
There was a safe distance between Sammy’s old life, and his life with Jack, and he was far from thrilled that this was where they seemed to be intersecting.

Sammy starts talking about his mother a lot more often. Dropping mentions of her into casual conversation.

“My mum improved so much when she started seeing a therapist, who would've thought it-”  
“Did you know that sometimes she thought the tv was talking to her? I was convinced for so long that – “  
“Medication was really helpful, y’know? I don’t understand why-“

Jack just always seemed to not notice. Or maybe he did, and was choosing to ignore it. Sammy just wanted to make Jack see that this thing, this obsession. It wasn’t right.

Then the phone calls started.  
Or. Well.  
Jack claimed the phone calls had started.  
Sammy never heard any of them personally, but Jack would run into the room, eyes wide and shining and thrust his phone at Sammy, talking at a thousand miles about _a woman on the other end, and a town called King Falls and and and –_

Sammy would sit Jack down, and carefully listen to what he had to say. He would hold his hand and smile and play along, and worry.

He spoke to a few people about _a friend of his_ who _had a friend_ dealing with…something. But nobody had any advice that seemed to work. He’d even tried phoning his mother’s old therapists office, but unless he could convince Jack to cross the country and attend their clinic in person, they really had no options for him either.   
And Jack wasn’t interested in hearing it.

He would roll his eyes and storm off in a huff if Sammy said anything to contradict his assertions that there was some real weird shit in the world. He would snap at Sammy and call him ‘unreasonable’ as though he weren’t the one who’d skipped the last four of their dates to stay home and bid for books about summoning rituals for The Devil on eBay.

The day Sammy comes home from a lunch-meeting and finds Jack in conversation with their toaster is when he snaps.  
It’s just. Too close. Too real. Too familiar.

“You need help Jack.”

“What I need is a supportive partner.”

“I’m trying Jack! How am I supposed to support you if you won’t admit there’s a problem.”

“The only problem I’m seeing here is that you refuse to believe, to understand, that there’s something bigger going on here.”

“Oh, I believe there’s something bigger going on here, it’s called a fucking psychotic breakdown.” 

They’d fought for hours. Jack had slept on the couch that night, after Sammy had vehemently refused to let him leave the house ‘in that state.’ Sammy had felt terrible about the whole thing, but he couldn’t stand the thought of having to come home to find Jack laying dead on the floor, with a note penned in his hand explaining how a werewolf had told him to end his life or something equally as deplorable and heart breaking.  
If it meant that Jack spent a few days, or hell, even his whole life not talking to Sammy. Well. It was much better than the alternative.  
  
Jack did start talking to him again, though. The things he was saying unfortunately did little to quell Sammy’s fears.

“King Falls.”

“The place with the ghosts.”  
  
“Apparitions, but yes. They have a radio station and…” 

Jack had the whole thing planned out. They could fix the shitty minutia of their lives, and travel to King Falls. They could find jobs for during the week, preferably at the radio station, but otherwise, if need be. He had already contacted the station manager – Merv – and they were currently in negotiations. Their weekends could be spent together, and researching something he called _Skin Walkers,_ and _Kingsie_ or whatever, and they could finally be happy.

Sammy had laughed.  
He’d laughed and cried and screamed.  
He’d maybe even punched a wall.

He’d thrown his phone at Jack, told him to call Frank the Werewolf and let him know to expect Jack next full moon. Alone. Then he’d left the house, slamming the door behind him.  
  
The only place he could think of to go was to a hotel the next suburb over. He rented a room for the night, spent the next four hours crying in a bed much too big for one person, until he’d eventually passed out from the sheer exhaustion of it all.  
  
How had this become his life? How had Jack become this person? How had he, Sammy, become this person.

He’d returned the following day to an empty house, and a phone full of messages.  
Jack had obviously not realised that since he’d had Sammy’s phone, Sammy wasn’t going to pick up his call, or respond to his pleas to come home.

Sammy had been reprimanded by his boss the following day, until he’d mentioned Jack, playing it off as though he were a concerned friend, and not the love of his life.

It wasn’t as though Jack’s changes had gone unnoticed. His angry boss’ expression softened. Everybody loved Jack, and Sammy - being his best friend - was obviously taking it the hardest. If Sammy missing a day of work led to Jack getting back on track, then perhaps it had been worth it.

The first time seeing Jack afterwards was. Different.  
They had both cried. Jack clung to him, with a startling urgency, and apologised profusely, whilst Sammy whispered reassuringly that it was okay, and that they were going to fix this, and they’d kissed and talked for hours and Jack didn’t mention wendigos or vampires once. They’d even managed to fix the small hole in the wall that Sammy had made, embarrassing as that had been.

A week was all it took for things to slip back to how they’d been.  
Sammy walked into the bathroom to find Jack writing a message in toothpaste on their mirror. 

‘I love you Jack, but holy shit.”

“Sammy, I can explain.”

“Go on then, I’d love to hear what bullshit excuse you can come up with for writing satanic chants on our bathroom mirror with my $20-a-tube toothpaste, god damnit Jack!”

Jack had explained something about vampires and their inability to read messages if they were written on mirrors, and Sammy had once again stormed out of the house and refused to return until the following morning. 

Years later, he’d look back on these nights (at least seven, by the end) that he’d wasted being angry, and hate himself an immeasurable amount for not spending every second he possibly could with Jack in his arms, even if that involved being terrified at the amount of sense Jack wasn’t making.

In the end, Jack had insisted on leaving – with or without Sammy. He’d packed a bag, begged Sammy to come with him.  
Sammy had begged equally as hard for Jack to stay. To stay and get help and not to leave him.

But if the last few months had taught him anything, it was that Jack wasn’t going to listen to reason, because he was just so…convinced that he was right. That there was nothing wrong. That the only thing strange here was that Sammy wasn’t as utterly enraptured in this as he himself was.

“It’s important that I’m there, Sammy. I belong there. So do you. You belong with me.”

“Did the voices in your head tell you that _Wright_?”

“They’re on the phone, _Stevens.”_

“Oh, because that just makes it _so much better.”_

“It would be better if you weren’t being such an ass about this.”

“I would stop being an ass if you just listened to me! Jack I’m so terrified of this. Of losing you to this disease! This stupid fantasy. It’s not real. It’s just not.”

Jack had laughed.  
Jack had laughed and it pierced Sammy like a knife because that wasn’t Jack.  
The laugh that fell out of his mouth was hollow and empty and dark.  
It was so far from the sunshine and purity and light that had danced around the melody of Jack’s laughter what seemed like a lifetime ago, but was in reality mere months.

“I’m not your mother, Sammy. I’m not going to leave because the chemicals in my brain tell me it’s convenient to do so. I’m not her Sammy. I’m Jack. I’m Jack _fucking_ Wright and I love you, and I want you with me, and I know that with more clarity than anything else in this messed up world and I also know that this is real. It’s happening. And I’m going.”

“It’s over. If you leave, it’s over.” Sammy hated each and every word as they spilled out of his mouth, but he needed Jack to stay. He needed Jack to choose him over these _fucking_ delusions. He needed Jack to be safe, and away from the horrors of that place, real or not real.  
Because if Jack stepped out the door and went to King Falls, no matter how normal it happened to actually be, it would be hell. A literal hell. For both of them.

“I’m leaving with or without you,” Jack had simply said. “If you decide to stay, that’s on you.”

“You can’t blame this shit on me,” Sammy snapped back. “I’ve tried and tried to help you and I just don’t know how anymore.”  
  
“Try helping yourself Sammy!” Jack had laughed that laugh again. Cruel. Strange. “You’re so focused on fixing me, when there’s nothing wrong with me! Stop looking at me and all the ways you think I’m broken, and think about your own fucked up life. I’m the one with psychosis? You want to know a major symptom of Psychosis? Paranoia. Look it up Sammy. I’ve seen your google searches, surely you know. It runs in your family, not mine. If anybody is a depressed, psychotic mess it’s you, and you can’t stand to look at yourself in the mirror so you want to drag me down with you too! I’m so sick of this.”

Sammy waited for Jack to finish. Didn’t interrupt him, let him say his piece.  
Once he had, in the moments before regret washed over Jack’s face and he realised he’d gone too far, Sammy made a decision.  
“Okay.”

Then he turned around, calmly walked towards their room, and locked the door behind him.  
Jack had spent half the night begging, pleading, and banging on their door, but Sammy pretended he couldn’t hear him. Didn’t want to hear him.  
  
Eventually the shouting stopped, and then the sobs, and then. Nothing.  
Sammy could imagine Jack slumped with his back against the door, glasses slightly askew, face streaked with tears and shaking even in his sleep.  
  
“I love you. Always.” Sammy whispered to the door, and let himself be consumed by the darkness.

Sammy would wake up the following morning, heart pounding from the worst nightmare of his life and walk into one that somehow managed to be even worse.

He would spend every moment of the next few months consumed by _why_ ’s and _what if’s._

He would transport himself back to that night, the last night, and open the door, pick Jack up off the floor, and refuse to let him go.

He would tell Jack that there wasn’t a thing in the world that he could say that would make him want to be anywhere else. He would tell him that it didn’t matter, and that he believed him, and that they could go to King _Fucking_ Falls, and be happy like Jack wanted. He would make sure Jack had heard his whispered final words. Make sure he understood them, and knew just how much Sammy meant them.

He would convince himself that Jack had been wrong. That medication or therapy or yoga or something would have made his brain work that way everybody said it was supposed to. That something as simple as a chemical produced by a piece of lumpy flesh could make him want to stay.

He would wonder if any of it would make a difference.

He would know with absolute certainty that this fucking illness was worse than any cancer. It had taken everything from him. Everything.

And on his first night in King Falls, and slowly over the years that followed, Sammy would change his mind about all of that.

Because somehow, some way, Jack had been right.  
Sammy should’ve known. Jack was always right.

And maybe there was some part of that illness inside of him, inside of both of them. But it wasn’t Jack that had changed because of it. It was Sammy.  
Sammy who had gone from utterly believing everything that came out of Jack’s mouth, to doubting his sanity. Who had loved one person so completely, yet pushed them away because it had been the easier option. 

Who had tried to destroy himself, too. Because it had been better than facing the mess that he’d made out of his life.

He wished his life were the kind of story where he could wake up and find out it had all been a dream. He wishes he was just hallucinating the loss of the only home he’d ever known.  
He wishes he could go back and tell Jack Fucking Wright that he loved him. More than anything, he just wished he were here.

When Ben asks him to, he gets the therapy he so desperately needs. The therapy he had so desperately wanted Jack to have. He’s a little reluctant, but thinks back to how desperate he’d felt when Jack was concerned, and knows Ben will come to feel the same. Maybe even resent him. He couldn't stand it if Ben resented him.

Surprisingly, it helps.

It would help a lot more if he knew Jack was okay, wherever he was.  
Knowing that Jack knew he believed him, and that he was sorry. So. Fucking. Sorry.

Knowing that he loved him, and being forgiven, and held and loved.

For now, though. He can deal with his own problems, and make himself better.  
For Jack and Ben and Troy, Emily and Lily - but for himself too.  
  
Because Jack might never come back, and there was no way of knowing what he had or hadn’t known. But, Sammy will always have Sammy. He wants to be the Sammy that Jack had loved – loves. Hopefully. He wants to be that person for the friends he has left, too.

And if someday, somehow, Jack finds himself back to Sammy’s bedroom door, tired and miserable and sorry, Sammy won’t let him fall asleep banging on the door in tears.  
He’ll open the door, invite him inside, and let himself hold the man he loves. Let himself be whole, and loved, and finally fucking _happy._

Because really, that's all he's ever wanted.

**Author's Note:**

> So, that was a thing.  
> Unhappy with that ending line, but hopefully the rest was...look, I want to say enjoyable but also I don't want to think about what it means if you enjoy sad!angsty!tornapart!jammy. Ignoring the fact that...I do.
> 
> Also, just wanted to add for full transparency: I've been diagnosed with schizophrenia for around 15 years, same as all females in my family. I totally understand that everybody's experience is different, and that I'm by no means an authority on anything to do with it, and I've taken some artistic licensing with Sammy's opinions about why Jack is psychotic, and a large percentage differs from my own views on the subject. If you have any concerns, please reach out. Whether that be in regards to any part of my portrayal, or like. To a professional if you have any worries about yourself/someone you love?? Idk. Thanks for reading, I am awkward.


End file.
